Showing titles in Literary History & Criticism

Random House presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Ode Less Travelled, written and read by Stephen Fry. Stephen Fry believes that if you can speak and read English you can write poetry. But it is no fun if you don't know where to start or have been led to believe that...

’An absolutely masterly work’ Stephen Fry Alex Ross, renowned author of the international bestseller The Rest Is Noise, reveals how Richard Wagner became the proving ground for modern art and politics—an aesthetic war zone where the Western world wrestled with its capacity for beauty and...

Two red-headed comedians revisit classic kids’ books. Will our childhood treasures stand the test of time? Or will we be forced to make fun of them on a podcast?

The Follycast is a bookclub podcast series focused on the Rivers Of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. Each episode we discuss a book in the series.

Brought to you by Penguin. A delightful, thoughtful and original new way to understand England's history This is the history of England told in a new way: glimpsed through twenty-five remarkable poems written down between the eighth century and today, which connect us directly with the...

In these 10 entertaining documentaries, he explores why some books, games and binge-watched box sets are, as they say, 'literally unputdownable'; peers into Plotto, an ingenious manual of story devices, to discover whether it really can make writing easy; takes a sideways look at some familiar characters from literature, including James Bond, Dracula, Fu Manchu and Carruthers; delves into the intricacies of the locked-room murder; and revisits his old prep school to find out whether a book of stirring 19th-century verse can work its magic on today’s young people. 

One frozen January morning at 5am, Inspector Wallander responds to what he believes is a routine call out. When he reaches the isolated farmhouse he discovers a bloodbath. An old man has been tortured and beaten to death, his wife lies barely alive beside his shattered body, both victims of a...

Sneaking around with my brother’s best friend is the least of my worries…Haunted by my last heartbreak, I have sworn off my brother’s friends. They are nothing but trouble.Especially Alec Wolfe: heir to a billion-dollar fortune, high school hockey star, and my brother's best friend.I despise everything about him… that is until he sneaks into my bedroom during my brother's party and tangles me into a dangerous web of secrets and lies. Alec takes everything from me that night, including my heart.But as fate would have it, an ominous stalker, menacing threats, and sinister secrets ...

In this compelling, powerful book, highly respected writer and commentator Jack Holland sets out to answer a daunting question: How do you explain the oppression and brutalization of half the world's population by the other half, throughout history? The result takes the listener on an eye-opening journey through centuries, continents, and civilizations as it looks at both historical and contemporary attitudes to women.

"Hi, my name is Conor. Other than my father being a bit of an eccentric lunatic, my life was pretty normal until I got attacked in my living room and whisked away to Tir na Nog, the mystical land of the ancient Celts, where it turns out Dad is the usurped heir to the throne and everybody wants me dead because of some prophecy. Don't you just hate when that happens?" Shadowmagic is a rip-roaring fun fantasy adventure novel by John Lenahan very loosely based on Irish mythology where every chapter ends on the edge of a cliff (or at least a high curb.) Join Conor as he grapples with typical ...

Short Stories in English for Beginners has been written especially for students from beginner to intermediate level, designed to give a sense of achievement, a feeling of progress and most importantly - enjoyment! Mapped to A2-B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference, these eight captivating stories are designed to give you a sense of achievement and a feeling of progress when listening. From science fiction to fantasy, to crime and thrillers, Short Stories in English for Beginners will make learning English easy and enjoyable. 

A collection of Larkin's best-known poems, read by the poet. The Sunday Sessions consists of 26 poems, the contents of two tapes recorded by Philip Larkin in Hull in February 1980 - reportedly, each on a Sunday, after lunch with John Weeks, a sound engineer and colleague of the poet. The tapes contain work from Larkin's first major collection, The North Ship as well as poems from his best-known collections, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows.

What is poetry? If music is sound organized in a particular way, poetry is a way of organizing language. It is language made special so that it will be remembered and valued. It does not always work - over the centuries countless thousands of poems have been forgotten. This little history is about some that have not. John Carey tells the stories behind the world’s greatest poems, from the oldest surviving one written nearly four thousand years ago to those being written today. Carey looks at poets whose works shape our views of the world.

This selection of essays by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) demonstrate the varied power of his genius. Compiled from his lecture tours, newspaper articles, essays and epigrams, these writings show that beneath his trademark wit and love of paradox, Oscar Wilde was an original and remarkably modern writer.

The main aim of detective stories is to entertain, but the best cast a light on human behaviour and display both literary ambition and accomplishment. Even unpretentious detective stories, written for unashamedly commercial reasons, can give us clues to the past and give us insight into a long-vanished world that, for all its imperfections, continues to fascinate.

The Potter Discussion is the ultimate Harry Potter podcast, giving you weekly discussions on the most exiting topics in Harry Potter, Fantastic Beasts, and beyond! In each episode, we talk about a new topic within the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts fandom, in addition to the occasional quiz or breakdown of a character. If you are a PotterHead and a Harry Potter super-fan, this podcast is for you! Sit back, subscribe, and let's dive into the unknown!

Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is one of the most beloved poets in English. Yet after his death a largely negative image of the man himself took hold; he has been portrayed as a racist, a misogynist and a narcissist. Now Larkin scholar James Booth, for seventeen years a colleague of the poet's at the University of Hull, offers a very different portrait. Drawn from years of research and a wide variety of Larkin's friends and correspondents, this is the most comprehensive portrait of the poet yet published.

NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2025 A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF 2025 ELLE BEST BOOKS OF 2025 'Essential reading' Irish Independent 'Fascinating and powerfully argued' Daily Telegraph 'A captivating must-read for anyone who wants to understand how and why misogyny is as powerful a force as ever'...

Reading was so important to Marcel Proust that it sometimes seems he was unable to create a personage without a book in hand. Everybody in his work reads: servants and masters, children and parents, artists and physicians. In this wonderfully entertaining audiobook, scholar and biographer Anka Muhlstein, the author of Balzac’s Omelette, draws out these themes in Proust's work and life, thus providing exciting highlights of some of the finest work in French literature.